"President Obama has been talking about prisons in a way that politicians really never talk about them," Maddow said. "He's been talking about prisons as places that some Americans call home, even though none of the people who have to call prison home, want to do that."

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"It is remarkable enough that a U.S. president is visiting a prison," she added. "But to hear a president talk about prisoners as fellow Americans, as fellow human beings -- that is something we are not used to hearing either."